know, general casey who is a 4-star general actually commanding troops in iraq, general casey says we only need one more brigade. what do you think? petraeus we must reduce arguments that she could funnel to our seniors on why this really isn't enough. so you know when he comes to washington and meets and out of the way restaurants, by the way, this is not a paula broadwell situation. this district a professional, but can you imagine? this is someone, essentially subverting the chain of command, getting his own views across there. ..

>> lined up so that he can go in and impose the strategy that he wants to impose with the full -- [inaudible] of the united states government, of the army and of the president of the united states. this is not a coincidence. it's all been very exquisitely coordinated. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> author david eax -- axe and illustrator tim hamilton talk

about joseph kony in africa. this is about an hour. >> my name is david axe, and i want to start out by making it very clear this is a comic book we're talking about. the term we use is graphic novel,. it tends to throw a lot of people, but for many years now folks have been using comic books to do reporting. tim and i are not the first. but it's still a relatively small field. before i talk about the book specifically, and i'm going to be brief because there are other folks that talk and then we're going to have a discussion, i want to take you back about three years. so the 2009-2010 time frame, where i was. had spent the previous five

years reporting mostly from iraq and afghanistan and a smattering of other conflict zones. but the sort of dominant theme of my reporting, looking at it as an american writing for, writing for an american audience. the dominant theme was what we'd done wrong or how we were screwing things up. the iraq war, obviously, began with lies and mistakes of epic proportion. and besides being launched on a false premise was conducted badly. so in iraq i reported on the training of iraqi security forces, which was also going badly, reconstruction of iraq -- which was going badly -- manipulation and suppression of the press by iraq and by u.s. forces, which is also bad.

thank you. and among other woes in iraq, hopping over to afghanistan the story was much the same. the war was launched under different circumstances, but in 2009-2010 appeared to be going very badly, as it continues to go rather badly. be so looking at the -- so looking at the world of conflict from the u.s. perspective for my american audience, it was hard to avoid becoming cynical and asking what are we doing and why do we do whatever we do so badly? and is there, is there another way to think about the use of armed force in the world, other places to use it in ways that wouldn't depress me quite so much? i began to look around the world at some of the conflict zones i was sort of vaguely familiar with. i was interested in congo for

congo's sake, the drc i'm talking about, democratic republic of congo, because there are overlapping conflicts. there are multiple rebel groups and armed groups and problems with the native security forces. all of it sort of bundled up in an ongoing crisis that affects tens of millions of people. but congo also very quietly in 2010 was appearing too shape up to be a future battleground for the united states to be a subject of u.s. intervention. in 2009 and 2010 we did have a small number of u.s. troops in drc working with the congolese military to try to improve their human rights record, training, education, exercises things like that. and medical outreach accompanied a team of u.s. army national

guardsmen who went into kinshasa in late 2010 to set up a health clinic and to deliver medical aid to just everyday congolese people as a way of winning hearts and minds, sort of preparing the battle space is the term the military likes to use, in a sense, for a wider intervention which was coming. there was momentum building for a more direct role in one of congo's most severe conflicts, and that would be the fighting surrounding the lord's resistance army which is originally a ugandan rebel group that had fled into congo and was hiding out if many northern congo and -- in northern congo and neighboring countries and survived by rape and pillage. we're going to talk in depth about this book, what they came from and what can be done about them. and the united states, among ore

actors, was working up the motivation, laying the plans, gathering the resources to do something about it. that would come about a year after my, my trip to drc to do my basic reporting when president obama announced that 100 u.s. military special operations forces would go to the drc and neighboring countries to work directly with native armies to hunt and hopefully destroy the lord's resistance army. but when i was there three years ago, that announcement had yet to come, and the ingredients of that intervention were still sort of bubbling in the pot. so i looked at it. it was an unmade thing, and i asked myself could this, could this be a new -- it's not necessarily a new way of war. there have been plenty of armed interventions, plenty of armed interventions by and for humanitarian reasons.

but could this represent a kind of military strategy is not the right word, but a grand strategy? an answer to the question what is america's role in the world postiraq? postafghanistan? could we leave a decade of bad war behind us and fight good warsesome now, there's going to be lots of caveats to that question. is u.s. military intervention in africa, to say nothing of congo, can that be a good war? the practical questions are myriad. and we'll get to those. but i looked at the congo, the potential for u.s. intervention in congo as an opportunity to fight for something that at least i personally could believe in to destroy a band of murderers and rapists who have no political constituency and who exist to survive, and their means of survival are the worst

possible things you can imagine. army of god is a, is a attempt on my part to understand congo and the whole region, the lra, the conflict and the escalating efforts to intervene by foreign countries, especially the united states. and i hope that it answers that broader question is this a better way for the united states finish is there a better way for the united states to be involved in the world in an armed sense as a military power. and so with that, i'm going to turn it over to tim, and tim's going show you -- i should have shown you some art before tim got up here. anyways, tim will show you some of the art he did for the book. and, again, we'll talk about this in more detail. and explain to you how a work of reporting can be converted into

a comic book. so, tim? >> good evening, everybody. i'm just going to switch slield shows real quick. i'm just going to talk very briefly. i'm sorry, i forgot how to get back there. i'm kind of the odd man out today was i'm not here to talk about the lra. unlike david, i didn't go to the congo. i live in brooklyn, and that's where i did all my work. and i worked from photos david sent me which budget really enough reference -- wasn't really enough reference even for me to draw a book that was, i

think, 80 pages is it now? so i had to go on bag to l, look up -- google, look up pictures on the congo, and the research for this book budget what i would call -- wasn't what i would call fun. as you heard earlier, i work for mad magazine, for marvel comics, and i write and illustrate my own children's books. but this book, of course, through the research i had to do i saw some horrible things. which made me realize that it must be very hard to see this every day of your life or live it. but i'm going to just talk very briefly how i did the artwork. i usually do the whole book like this, very small, probably this big. i do every page of the book in thumbnail form. david wrote a script for me. i guess david had never -- well, david had written one graphic novel before? >> two. >> yeah.

and if there was any problem, you know, we talked about it, storytelling, where word blooms go, a lot of minutiae that goes into making a comic book. and, again, these are more thumbnails. and i had to draw a lot of real life people. i don't know if you can name these people. david can. [laughter] and do a lot of portraits of people who are not fun people. so, as i said, i'm just talking briefly here, and i guess we're going to have a question and answer? >> well, let me -- >> unless david -- >> maybe for, for a hitting more, um, in-- for a little more insight into how this work withs, the mechanics of drawing a comic book are the same

whether you're doing a nonfiction book or fiction, whatever. you have to produce a script. it looks a lot like a screenplay or a stage play. so the writer will produce the script, in my case based on actual reporting and research, and then hand it over to an artist who then has to interpret that script. so imagine that what i did first was i wrote a very long magazine article, and instead of publishing, i fave it to tim -- i gave it to tim, and tim broke that down into about 900 pages -- 100 pages of artwork. so there's really two reporters on this thing. because without his drug, there's no, nothing there. so he had to take the facts i gave him and ground those in a sense of reality. so his artwork is reported in the sense that it's all based on research as well. so collaborative nonfiction graphic journalism. [laughter]

>> and either fortunately or unfortunately, on google i can look up whatever david wrote even though david didn't take pictures of everything that happened to him in the congo. but, um, shall we? >> shall we? >> yeah. >> okay. okay. can everybody hear me? great, i'm rona, as you've heard, and i am very pleased to be here tonight. human rights watch has done a great deal of work on the lra as you will see be you read david and tim's book. and examples of our work are upstairs, actually, so you can see it on your way upstairs. we have researchers based in both goma and kinshasa and have done extensive reporting on the ground and advocacy with

policymakers both in congo and internationally. and i think the lra is one of the hardest issues that we write about and work on. i can tell you that our researchers who have been exposed to some pretty horrific stuff in congo will tell, will say that the lra atrocities are among the worst they've seen. and some of these are apparent when you read the material and look at the photos and other documents with the materials that we've published. and maybe more happily we've also done a great deal of work on the ground with civil society and churches and humanitarian groups trying to make sure that their voices are heard. be -- some of the documents upstairs include submissions by coalitions of local groups saying this is what we want. and one of the things that groups did want was, actually, more attention and even more intervention, although various

kinds of intervention. and we can talk about that. and i think to some extent we've been successful, and when i say "we," i mean the broad coalition of groups working worldwide on the lord's resistance army which has been a longtime problem. but it's a, this is a hard issue to work on, so i give david and tim a great deal of credit for their bravery and te fashionty in doing it. of i'm going to ask them a series of questions, and then i'll open up the floor for questions, and we'll ask that you speak into the microphone which will be circulating. but first i'm going to, i'm going to ask them a few questions before i turn to the audience. so one of the questions i was going to ask you which i think you've just answered is, um, translating reporting into a graphic novel. and graphic novel i now realize is not, i mean, is not the correct terminology.

collaborative nonfiction graphic journalism? >> graphic novel is fine or comic book. [laughter] >> but do you feel like comic book, do you feel that somehow trivializes the gravity of the work that you've done, or do you feel that's a good way to describe it? >> that's an argument that publishers are having. [laughter] it's a long and boring one. >> okay. >> for me -- >> oh, okay. >> no, i'm saying these people maybe don't know the argument, but comic book tends to make people think archie, depending on who you are -- >> or superheroes. >> and graphic novels are usually a longer piece of work like we just did, so it kind of takes a difference. if you go the bookstore and buy a graphic novel, it's usually one large piece of work. >> but if you stack enough comic books on top of each other, you get a graphic novel. the terminology's kind of bad, and the reputation of comics in

the wide audience is not great. the question whether you can do serious things with a comic book got answered a very long time ago, but not for everybody. it got answered for folks who were sort of already involved in the medium. i think every year we make a little bit of progress in convincing people that a comic book can be more than superheroes or comedy. but it's still, it's still an uphill battle. i mean, you're dealing with more than 100 years of tradition you have to not overcome necessarily, but that's the context you work in. >> were you inspired by particular artists and writers in doing this? >> well, myself when i work on a project, i work on every project differently. if you've looked at artwork for this, we have some up here, i kind of looked at wood carvings because i'm not a fan of the way marvel or dc comics looks as pertaining to a serious subject. if you've seen a marvel comic,

you know they're very exaggerated, exaggerated faces -- which is fine for that. i thought this material should look a little more serious. so i gave it this wood cut look that had some weight and seriousness to it. >> i was inspired by two people, but this was a long time ago. when i first got into doing conflict reporting, i was just browsing in a bookstore one day and came across a book called "to afghanistan and back" by a guy named ted rawl who at the time was reporting for the village voice writing essays and cartoons. he decided to combine those two mediums, flew off to afghanistan in 2001, got shot out and ran around a bunch, sent his wife into a minefield, wrote about it and shoved it all together in this chaotic and brilliant package and produced what he called an instant graphic novel. and i just picked that thing up, and, i mean, my life changed in an instant reading that book.

decided i wanted to do a similar thing, and here we are three or four books later. >> uh-huh, interesting. did you have a particular audience in mind? was there somebody -- was there a group of people that you really wanted to reach out to with the book? >> i don't know if david had anyone in mind. i guess book withs like this each though they're very everybody, they end up in school libraries a lot. so i thought this was great to do a book like that might educate kids in high school. not to say it's just for kids in high school, but, um, i've done a lot of talks when i did fahrenheit, and a lot of kids are very excited about reading a graphic novel who didn't want to read the novel which i have mixed feelings about because i like novels and graphic novels -- >> we have a question already. >> did you want -- >> i'll take the question. >> sir, can we get to you in one second? one second. i just want to answer rona's

question, audience question, which i think is a terrible pitfall. i could be completely wrong here, and our publyist is here, too, but i don't think about audience. >> okay. >> i think if you -- it's such a shapeless, evolving, mysterious thing that the you try to write -- that if you try to write with too specifically for some imaginary audience, you're really just writing for yourself, so go ahead and admit it. so i don't try to think too hard. i write stories that are compelling to me and do them material justice. >> i'm just going to ask one more question, and then i will open up to the floor. you, david, said you were interested in positive uses of u.s. military force, and i'm wondering whether you feel like you found that with the lra in many congo. for those of you -- i mean, when you read the book, you'll see that the u.s. becomes very involved in this question. the u.n. is already involved to

some extempt. there are efforts -- extent. the ugandans are involved, for example, but joseph kony, the leader of this murderous group, is still at large commanding a force of some 100 people, let's say. many of them who may have been forcibly recruited into his army. and who survive, basically, on the basis of killings and rape and pillage and wreaking havoc on the local population who does not want him there or who do not want him there and then moving in very remote zones that are very hard to get to where there are very few roads, and you can't take cars, for example, very easily. our researchers go on motorbike for three hours to get there, and, you know, the u.n. might say that it's too remote, it can't get there. so they kind of lurk in the sort of south sudan, central african republic, northern cop go. con duo. so that was a long way of just

asking do you feel like the various effort that is you did see undertaken manifested themselves in something good that you could feel proud of which it sounds like you wanted, or did you come back feeling disappointed and why? >> well, first of all, my trip to congo to do the initial reporting for this book took place before the expansion of the u.s. involvement in congo which which occurred in late 2011. so there were some americans on the ground, but not too many. so it was too early for me to be disappointed. but where i stand now, i still desperately want this to help, first of all. i want us to pull this off. without too many innocent people getting hurt. because that always happens. >> uh-huh. >> and there's specific examples of the way the lra reacts to foreign intervention that can make the lra problem worse. >> right. >> so it's a, i'm aware of the pitfalls, i'm aware of america's

history of armed humanitarian intervention, aka somalia. i know this can go very badly. and i've, i've once interviewed a 6-year-old girl with no skin because she had been bombed by americans, an innocent bystander in supposedly well-intended intervention. i foe this can -- i know this can go badly, but i believe that finish this sounds naive or silly or simplistic, but i believe armed force can be used for good. the question is war the causes, how do we use it, what are the constraints we should impose. i want the congo intervention, well, the regional intervention really at this point, to be an example of good intervention. >> uh-huh. >> and i'm probably going to be proved wrong. i mean, we haven't caught kony, the lra's still there, the

statistics are sort of in flux. we don't know if tear less active -- if they're less active or more active. it could go nowhere and irritate a lot of people. >> maybe it would help to clarify that joseph kony and two others are wanted by the international criminal court for crimes against humanity and that there have been various efforts in the past to arrest him or apprehend him or maybe worse or more lethal, and they have not succeeded. and there has occasionally been humanitarian and political consequences of these operations not succeeding. so succeeding in this kind of terrain is very complicated. and there are all kinds of legal questions, too, about how you do it. >> but i believe this is worth trying. what's so frustrating for me is to observe the vast scale and sophistication and expense of something like the iraq war which if you are completely amoral and can view it just as a

machine is astounding -- or was with astounding in its sophistication and its almost beauty in the way that, you know, the technology and the people and the training and the strategy all came together for a completely wrongheaded idea. i mean, we invested all that money and all those lives, american and iraqi and others, in a war that made the world less safe. it vexed me that we would not at least early in the war question too much the wisdom and the cost effectiveness of fighting that war, and yet the idea of sending 100 american advisers to the congo has caused a fair amount of hand wringing. when it is a rounding r record in the pentagon budget. >> i mean, one thing that i think david is saying aside from the politics of the iraq war which i think a lot of people did question is it was actually

hard to get this orphan the radar of on the aaround -- on the radar of the administration. and for better or worse, i don't know which it is, sometimes african issues don't get to the level that they might if they were taking place somewhere else. >> because there are a lot of black people in africa. >> well, the reasons for that are complicated, and maybe we can talk about that. i think i'm going to call on the gentleman who's been so patient in the pack and have him -- in the back and have him ask his question. >> i am very surprised that this is comics, but if i would substitute army of god for democracy, army of democracy, joseph kony will be u.s., and you said that iraqi war, afghanistan has ended. no, still is pending, sir. and pakistan we have a war, in syria, and it's coming in

persian gulf. and, of course i do not feel that this is a little too much hypocrisy about this war. you said and this lady said about torture, how bad is joseph of -- joseph kony got army. but i once said that on the west and in no -- [inaudible] was not described as criminal organization because u.s. was -- [inaudible] >> so -- >> maybe they projected in future -- sorry, sir. one moment. this is small question, don't worry. >> actually, sir, do you have a question? i'm not sure that i'm following you. >> are i think i do follow --

>> yeah. well, hypocrisy first, why is come you cans? -- comics? this is very serious program. >> oh, i see. why don't we let david answer that. >> [inaudible] didn't get the oscar about describing bagram, describing abu ghraib, etc., etc. >> so i think you have two questions, right? one is this is a serious subject, and we completely agree, so why do it in a comic book form? >> and, of course, u.s. you think will be not to do nothing. and -- >> and i'll answer that. i'll try to. >> >> i am sure in -- [inaudible] >> okay, thank you. >> okay. so, first of all, we understand it's a serious subject, but our position is that a comic book can treat a serious subject, i mean, it's been done many times before. we are not the first, nor are we the best, by any means. but the second question is a very good point, you're saying does the united states have the moral authority to intervene

anywhere on humanitarian grounds -- >> no. >> right. that's your point that because of -- >> [inaudible] but outside like in -- [inaudible] >> i understand. so you're saying that the united states does, it lacks the moral authority to intervene on a humanitarian basis. and you're right in the the sense that the united states has committed war crimes in the past, well, i mean, always, but in the past decade and a half in particular in iraq and afghanistan. >> [inaudible] >> who is worse? well, that's apples and oranges. but what you're asking is we have the moral authority to intervene, and i would say that we must. and that's how we reclaim the moral authority is to intervene in places where we can, where people want us to. and this is not an invasion of the drc. u.s. troops are in congo alongside the u.n. at the

invitation of the congolese government, and it's not the faux invitation that baghdad extended the united states after the invasion. no, i mean, really congo needs help defeating this armed threat. and the way the united states can reclaim its moral authority as the world's leading military power is to use it wisely and for the right reasons. we shouldn't because we have erred, because we have sinned we should not cease doing good. the united states has done wrong, and this is how we can make up for it. >> okay. >> well, i understand your point, and it's a very good one. thank you, sir. >> yeah. i'll call -- i wanted to just add two words just to say that up until now it will, most recently it's been ugandan troops that have been trying to find and apprehend kony, and they have received u.s. backing. of course, it's important to say that ugandan troops themselves are responsible for some very serious abuses in uganda. but the u.s. has relied upon

them to hunt kony down, and that is seen by some people as being problematic. the oh thing i wanted to say is the kinds of interventions we're looking at, first of all, there are 100 u.s. military advisers, so they are training the ugandans, and there's also the kinds of intervention we've been talking about thus far are in terms of civilian protection, communications and also helping with demobilization of people who want to come out of the lra or who do manage to come out by escaping which is a very dangerous thing to do. with that, i think i saw some hands, and i will call -- yes, sir. >> oh, thank you. how did this whole thing get started? in other words, what you've got, you said a hundred. i mean, that's not much of an army. >> no. it was bigger. >> it's a band of rogues. >> yes. >> with who are just going around killing and plundering. >> yes.

>> and how did they get started and why did you call it the army of god? >> two questions, very good. thank you. okay, the first one. the lra, lord's resistance army, has been around for about 30 years, and it originally was part of the ugandan -- there was a civil conflict in uganda, basically, between north and south, haves and have nots. the lra fought for the north. that's a gross oversimplification of the issue, but correct me if i'm wrong. but they, it was this strange, vicious, weirdly voodoo voodoo/christian group that quickly alienated the group it ostensibly was fighting for and got booted, more or less, out of congo or out of uganda and began a kind of wandering trek through the region settling eventually in the drc and now central african republic. they are, we don't know how many

lra there are, nor do we really have a very good definition of lra, because the lra has a core of adult leaders, some of whom are former enslaved children who were enslaved by the lra, have drown up in the group and now serve up. but the rest of the lra is largely made up of a rotating cast of unwilling people who are coerced or brainwashed is a loaded term, but, fine, brainwash today varying degrees. the lra will come into town, murder people, take the boys and girls, use the boys for labor, give the boys guns and machetes and make them kill to sort of make them psychologically wounded and then make them need the group. and then the women are sex slaves. they call them lra brides is what the, you know, what the congolese call them. and so these people, they don't -- these kids do not want to be there until they've been

there long enough, and then asking what they want is like asking what a cat or a dog or a squirrel or a rat wants. i don't understand what they want. but a lot of these kids try to escape, and they coescape. and they need help to be rehabilitated, to be brought back into some sort of community. so do they count as lra? how many lra are there? if you ask the residents in congo, a town that's surrounded or has been surrounded by lra who's in lra, they'll point to people in the town and say that girl's in lra because she was with them for two years. that boy killed a man, now he's being rehabilitated by the catholic church, but we won't have anything to do with them. nobody knows. probably a few hundred. there had been many more. and the small size of the group belies their destruction. eastern congo, northeastern congo -- well, half of congo, everything that's not kinshasa, basically, in the west, it's a

forest, a largely virgin forest the size of western europe with a road. i mean, south carolina, where i'm from, has way more paved roads than all of congo, and congo is 50 times bigger. very remote. very heavily populated. there's 70 million congolese as far as we know. this armed group is sort of the entire eastern congo is fair game for the lra, and other armed groups, but the lra in particular. they cause far more devastation, and one of the problem is the the displacement. even the rumor of there being a single lra in the forest, which is almost true, there's an lra there -- but, it can force people to leave their homes. where do they wind up? they live in the forest, they will settle into their community where they have in work, no support, they'll wind up in a camp in uganda -- i'm sorry, in congo or in another country cared for by the u.n. or other

agencies. and this has a ripple effect. congo will never develop, will never develop its governance if it can't have a measure of security, and it can't have a measure of security when there are 100 very dangerous people or 200 or 50 running around in this ungoverned space terrorizing people. so it's, the reason i believe this can be an example of good intervention is because if you eliminate the existing lra leadership, you eliminate the group. if they can't recruit, they cease to exist. this is not an insurgency. this is not native congolese rising up. and they do this. i mean, the congolese, there are congolese armed groups that are fighting for a political cause. the lra is not one of them. the hra is a group of criminals -- criminals is too kind a word. they're murderers. but they're war criminals. we need a new word for what they are. and if you eliminate them, they go away. they don't come back.

>> i see two questions, but i don't think you answered the question about why army of god, it was one of my questions too. >> i didn't choose the title, but i guess it's a very provocative title that people bond or about, and i just thought i'd add that, um, i was away when my agent sent me the balance of the money i got for the book, so i had him wire the money to me rather than send it as a check, and the department of homeland security seized the money because the title was "army of god." >> there's a domestic, there's a domestic terrorist group called army of god. >> yeah. i did find that out, there's a domestic terrorist group called army of god, so the government has me on a wic list, i -- watch list, i guess. [laughter] a month later i did get my money. >> we call it the army of god because it references both the lra which claims to have some sort of divine foundation.

it's a very strange and fascinating little cult with some, you know, trappings of christianity in there -- hence, the lord's resistance army name -- so we sort of are playing on their self-given title. but also i posit in the book, i mean, i think i literally write this in the book that the real army of god is the people who are fighting the lra and the people who don't fight at all, who just live. who just live peacefully. so that's the true army of good. >> yes. wait for the mic, please. >> is it my understanding that that a couple of years ago joseph kony had been cornered and was about to give himself up in return for amnesty? and the ugandan government was ready to offer him amnesty, but then the human rights people all made a big -- [inaudible] and said it couldn't be done? and so now he's been let free to go and create more havoc?

so what's the solution to this? do you free him and let the suffering people feel better, or do you send him to the criminal court and then he's going to create more havoc? >> the answer i'm supposed to give to that question is he should be captured and sent to the icc to stand trial, but i'm a south carolinian, so i would prefer that he be killed. [laughter] the question of -- and i'm not kidding. >> no, no, but i think she's also raising a an interesting question about the role of the human rights movement in this as well. >> right. >> and there was a very big debate in uganda, northern uganda in particular about what to do with kony and what to offer him. and there was even a sort of a difference of opinion between locals on the ground who said that they wanted to give him amnesty and forgiveness in a way, and human rights groups that said you're just creating a recipe for more violence, and if you don't stop this kind of violence and apprehend people and send them to account for their crimes, you will just see more people commit crimes. so this should serve as an

example be of what happens -- example of what happens when you are a mass murderer. and it's a wrenching decision. it was a very painful episode. and i can see both sides. but, and i think he also escaped for other reasons. but it was a little more complicated than that, but it's a good question. um, you had a question as well. >> my question is, actually, i think, a good segway to both of the previous comments. i'm a canadian university professor here for the u.n. meetings in this week and last week on the rights of women, and i'd like to ask about the pattern of this kind of organized, um, rape and pillage, as you said earlier. and the fact that we have, and you reference it in your book as well, the m-23. i mean, the lra is one of many

in different parts of the world. what -- and also i want to make sure i tell you that i think it's a great format. >> thank you. >> you know, as an educator, it's a great format x i've bought two copies to take back and use in some of what i teach. but my question is in doing the work that you have and seeing what you've seen and the way in which the focus on kony is different from anything else and the way in which impunity has become such a strong question raised by this, where do we go from here, you know? what have you seen that works? what, as awful as all of this is, what's happening that -- what have we learned from this, what can we change, what's coming together in a way that we've never really had to organize in responses? and i just would be welcoming of

any comments. >> we can both tackle this. i'll start by saying some background to the lady's question, there is an epidemic of sexual violence not just in the drc, not just in central africa, not just in africa, but in conflict zones all over the world. there's an epidemic of sexual violence. aka rape. and it's the rape of men and women, old, middle-aged, boys, girls, babies, i mean, it's the whole spectrum. the role in this plays in the conflict in the drc and congo is that rape is a weapon. it's a way of destroying the fabric of a community to make them vulnerable, and a vulnerable community cannot fight back. and i'll give you some oversimplified examples. there are lots of communities in the region that have mobile used

themselves -- mobilized themselves to defend themselves against the lra. it's fascinating. they will make homemade shotguns out of scrap metal, and they will go on patrol, or bows and arrows, and they'll patrol the forest to secure the field. they call them arrow boys. and communities, if they are -- if they can work together,they support each other, if they just have that spirit can fight back. even without any foreign intervention. but if you don't have those intangible ties, the community -- individuals on their own are vulnerable, are powerless. and the way that you destroy those ties is by creating, you create the rationale for prejudice, for rejection. and the sexual stigma attached to victims of rape is a great way to do that. congolese society, and it's not

the only society that thinks this way, if you are raped, it is your fault. that's, again, oversimplifying, but the victim of rape is a, is hermetically sealed within his or her community and breaks up that fiber that binds that community. the most powerful interview i conducted for the book, and it's all over the book because tim did a great job drawing it is this girl who was captured by the lra and raped, freed by the ugandans and is being rehabilitated and has been utterly rejected by the commitment she was returned to. and her life is bleak because of that. she's an example of what happens to a community when people are raped by these armed groups, it destroys the community and makes the community vulnerable. and this happens, we don't even know the numbers for how often this happens. and it's not just the lra. it's every armed group and the military in the congo and the

ugandans and everyone except i'm going to venture the united states has not yet joined the epidemic of sexual violence. >> sexual violence within the u.s. military. >> yes, exactly. >> so maybe i can also add a dimension to your question. um, i mean, this is -- it's, obviously, a very endemic issue and prevalent and very hard to deal with. i've seen some things on the ground that do work. i've met women who literally go into communities and rescue other women and take them home, give them shelter and give them a space to talk. the need for rehabilitation is very great. the need for housing and shelter and food and sustenance and work and education is very great. and there are congolese, in this case, activists on the ground who do just this and who are incredibly brave for the work they do. and these women have, i think, have grown in reputation and been recognized and honored, and i hope that there's many more of them. that would be one thing. i think the rehabilitation and

destigmatization on education are incredibly important to show that these women are productive members of society and need to be reintegrated which means that conversations need to be had with the communities that they come from and from the men in the communities in particular that this, these are people that you should accept back into your community. and finally i just want to say that it's, obviously, very important to demonstrate that people who commit sexual violence will be held to account for their crimes. and there are glimmers of hope that this is happening in congo to some extent through a variety of means and mechanisms, but that said, there's rapists still rampant including by the congolese army. >> i want to ask tim a question, actually. so when you are presented with this material where we are sort of, we're talking about rape victims, real rape victims, how do you draw that? >> um, well, your script didn't

really, didn't ask for explicit depiction of it, and i wasn't -- i didn't i didn't want to explicitly depict that a. of i mean, i think there's a fine line between telling a story and just being, what's the word -- >> gratuitous? >> gratuitous, yeah. so, again, that's why the book is -- i picked a style that was very representational rather than super realistic because i thought super realistic depiction of many of the things in the book would be gratuitous. >> i didn't know that. good for you. >> right. >> that explains, so there's places mt. book where the art shifts -- where the art shifts to an almost impressionistic style. and you did that to sort of pull away from the violence? >> yeah. >> nice. >> interesting. okay, so there's more questions, and i see some students have their hands up. go ahead, alex.

[laughter] >> um, so my question was you were talking about how you see, like, an intervention in congo as like a chance for, like, the u.s. to redeem its role as, whatever, like the military force. but i was wondering what specific role you envisioned for the u.s. like, do you see it -- what? >> go ahead. >> like, do you see it purely as, oh, like, we should just send in an apache squad to go after the lra, or do you think there should be more widespread, like, security sector forum and capacity building because that would require a lot more -- >> yes. >> and that would require more money and more troops and a much more significant, extended presence whereas you are kind of talking about just going in and getting him. >> okay. absolutely, and i'll answer that question from the top down. first of all, we need a grand strategy. the u.s -- people are obviously a part of this conversation, but our leaders need to think about and state in simple terms what

is the american, what is the role of america in the world, america as a military power? because it's really hard to get a short answer to that question. and that question needs to b answered in light of the previous 15 years of military screwups. so it starts with we all need to answer that question, what should our role be. my argument is that we need to prioritize humanitarian interventions and maybe have fewer pointless, massive ground wars in asia. because we even with sequestration and budget cuts and postwar drawdowns the amount of resources we are sort of comfortable spending, comfortable with spending on our military, it's, you know, it's as much as the next 25 countries combined. so let's do something with that. good. something good with that.

something that's actually going to make the world a better place. okay, so you want specifics. obviously, we should take it on a case-by-case basis. the lra's a great example of what should be in theory a fairly easy intervention because the lra doesn't have a political constituency. when you fight the lra, you aren't fighting 50 million people whereas if you invade afghanistan even if you're fighting a small number of hard core taliban, a lot of those dudes are from afghanistan, and they've got families, they've got interests. and you, when you start killing afghans who are kind of fighting for their own country's freedom and integrity from a certain perspective, then you motivate other afghans to fight. but if you wipe out the lra, i guarantee you you're not going to motivate other congolese to take up arms and adopt some weird voodoo christianity and go murder people. there's still going to be plenty of fighting and violence in congo, but the lra as a specific

phenomenon can be eliminated. so that's an easy intervention. but you've got to be really skeptical. and i admit i'm not when i'm advocating for greater intervention in the drc. so, for example, let's pick syria. who are we intervening for? yes, sir. >> [inaudible] >> wait, i think -- oh, go ahead, alex. go ahead. >> [inaudible] i just wanted to, like, clarify. i wasn't talking generally, i meant within the drc. do you think there should be greater security sector reform? pause the lra is a very small segment, but it's an end dimock -- epidemic. my question was, like -- >> how far do you go? >> right. like, how extensive is the security reform. >> right. >> i mean, you would have to do full of on -- >> yeah, and you would need a million american troops in congo. so where do you draw the line? >> i think alex, if i understand the question, is asking a profound question.

>> yeah. >> because a u.s.-led or whatever it would be exercise is one thing, but there are still endemic issues in congo that, um, that should be, one would like them to be sorted out. but we're talking about years including during the colonial period of mismanagement and violence. and to improve governance and to promote security sector reform is an enormous and tomb consuming and extensive -- time consuming and expensive and politically challenging undertaking. so, alex, you asked a good question, and i think it's something that a lot of us talk about, but something that we can only make incremental gains in because it's such an enormous topic. >> but we are doing that in the drc. >> who's we? >> united states. >> okay. >> i mean, on a very small scale. but secretary clinton talked about it. >> sure. >> and even before the 100 special forces that were announced by obama two years ago, there were small numbers of

troops in the u.s. working to stand up what were called model battalions -- >> right. >> -- of the congolese army to try to rebuild the congolese army from the ground up on a small scale. as a example of how a battalion could exist in the congolese army without raping people. so we should do more of it, but, yeah, you're right, where do we draw the line? i don't know. which is why i should never be president. [laughter] >> um, so i saw some other hands. just go ahead. very happy to announce that some of my current and former students are here. >> do you intend to distribute the books throughout congo so that people would, the populace would actually have an understanding of what's going on, or would that be, would the books be destroyed by the -- or would that be permitted in the country? >> i don't think the lra does a lot of book burning. but that's not up to me, actually, that's --

>> publishing. >> the publisher. but would i like congolese people to read it? well, sure. i imagine that a lot of congolese people have a much greater perspective, a much greater understanding of all than we do. i kind of wrote this as an outsider for outsiders to get a first glimpse, an initial glimpse at this conflict. but that's a good question. >> thank you. i just have a question about the medium. earlier when you were explaining, david, you said you wrote kind of a very long magazine article that you handed tim as like a script. did you think at that point should i file this elsewhere, or were you confident this has got to be my next endeavor? >> i did all that as well. so i had to pay the bills. >> oh, okay, gotcha. >> i still do freelance writing even because i've made literally

dozens of dollars on my graphic novels. [laughter] i'm joking, but not really. that's a passion. the graphic novels are a passion. >> first online comic before it was a publishing comic on a web site. cartoon -- and you had an editor there. >> be matt morris. >> yeah. >> but, yeah, i mean, so i had to do a lot of sort of daily journalism along the way, but was i confident that it was going to be -- well, until tim came along, no. because getting someone to draw this was very difficult. it's tricky subject matter. it was a lot of art for, and, you know, none of us have a lot of money to throw around, so nobody was getting rich off this thing. so, actually, i'd like to ask you a question i haven't asked you before. >> okay. >> why did you do this? [laughter] >> i did this because, in my intro you heard i work for various magazines and groups,

and i get -- i don't want this to sound trite, i get bored easily. so i didn't do this because i was bored because it's a very important subject, but i'm writing children's books now, i do cartoons. and i would just, i become very bored doing the same subject day in and day out and being a freelance artist allows me to do a lot of different types of projects and cartoon movement where this was first published on a web site, they somehow got some money to pay us. >> the dutch government. >> yeah, the dutch government. and, in fact, before i did this book, i could have been happier before i did this book, i think my agent or somebody contacted me wondering if i wanted to illustrate the biography of rush limbaugh. [laughter] and i honestly answered them even though i like to work on different projects, i honestly told them i didn't think i could spend six months researching

rush limbaugh or drawing rush limbaugh. >> the lra's much, much easier, right? >> yeah. [laughter] >> i don't know how we're doing on time. should -- maybe a couple more questions? so are there any more questions? yes. >> [inaudible] >> i'm wondering about the use of the word "novel" to describe this. >> i'm sorry, could you start from the beginning? your mic -- >> oh, i just was curious wondering about the use of the word "novel" to describe what you're doing. >> why did you use the word "novel"? that's just the industry term. >> which seems like fiction. >> yeah, i know. that's the industry term. graphic novel, a fat comic book. >> does that take away from the gravity of the subject? >> maybe. >> that was my first question. [laughter] >> well, some people think so, but -- >> [inaudible] >> it doesn't both err me. -- bother me. >> it's a relatively new term

that i guess bothers some people. but graphic novel, again, it just sounds better than comic book. that's where the argument stands right now. people have heated arguments about that. i can't spend our time here tonight arguing about whether it's called a graphic novel or a comic. >> yeah. it might turn off some people, but it wasn't really our choice. >> [inaudible] >> yeah. >> oh, okay. >> which is why we have to emphasize whenever we get an opportunity, this is a nonfiction graphic novel, so it's not actually a novel at all. it's -- >> i'm just wondering if you would consider graphic documentary. or graphic journal. >> graphic journal. i like that, yeah. >> because along with journalism. >> but, see, we're just two dudes. we don't really pick the language. >> reinvent it. >> you know, everybody calls them graphic novels, so -- >> it has to go to a certain section of the bookstore. >> by the way, i wanted to

mention since you've talked about documentary, it occurred to me to tell you human rights watch premiered a very interesting film which i think is loosely premised on the lra, called war witch. .. galvanize attention to the coney lra phenomenon, the call for his arrest among other measures. tens of mill